Visualising Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation

• Book Editor(s):Aline Batarseh, Jessica Anderson, Yosra El-Gazzar
• Published Date:September 2024
• Publisher:Haymarket Books
• Hardback:392 pages
• ISBN-13:979-8888902509

Khaled Adnan’s hunger strike in 2012 was the impetus for Visualising Palestine’s enduring project which depicts Israeli colonialism and the Palestinian experience of living under colonial rule. Unlike the statistics we are used to associating with Palestine, which render Palestinians faceless numbers with no identity, Visualising Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2024) uses statistics to illustrate the human experience. Research and compelling graphics have rendered the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle both relevant and prominent.

The introduction notes that, while the Palestinian struggle is gaining prominence globally, Palestinians are facing even more repression. And statistics do not convey the human and political experience: “The human brain is not designed to comprehend mass atrocities, yet we seem to give numbers immense power to describe reality.”

Visualising Palestine uses graphics to depict the truths concealed within the statistics. The book consists of twelve chapters, each dealing with a specific reality of colonialism and the Palestinian experience. Each chapter is accompanied by an introduction that summarises the context of the infographics, contextualising with quotes, historical overviews and explanations of Israel’s colonial policies and violence. Aptly, settler-colonialism is the first theme, with graphics showing the sheer scale of destruction in terms of land and people: “Sometimes, the systematised violence of settler- colonialism unfolds incrementally while, other times, it erupts into “genocidal moments” of mass killing and expulsion, as we are witnessing at the time of writing this book.”

The maps dealing with forced displacement show settler-colonialism prior to Israel’s establishment in 1948, which creates cohesion in terms of imparting the reality of Zionist settler-colonialism and how the settler-population increased as Palestinians had their permits revoked and were forcibly displaced. The book draws upon Salman Abu Sitta’s research on the depopulated villages to imagine the Palestinian Right of Return in the infographics, Return is Possible – an important inclusion because colonialism can be reversed.

Against a backdrop of the anti-colonial movement from 1945 to 1968, the book shows how several countries were gaining independence even as Israel gradually implemented apartheid policies. “Oppression in Palestine is a structure, not an event, and apartheid is a system of control that permeates every aspect of Palestinians’ daily life, from the mundane to the monumental.” The Palestinian Authority’s collaboration with Israel is one of the issues depicted in the infographics, showing “the PA’s lack of practical or moral authority in the struggle against apartheid” against a backdrop of corruption and security coordination with Israel.

The chapter on Gaza is of immense significance. The infographic, “Gaza’s Untold Story”, pays attention to the enclave’s refugee history since the Nakba. “A surreal and cruel geography emerges where generations of Palestinian refugees live and die within walking distances of homes Israel prevents them from reaching,” the book explains. The infographics take the reader on a journey through Gaza’s history, the illegal blockade and its consequences, and Israel’s military bombardments, telling some of the stories linked to the killings of Palestinian civilians, up to the ongoing genocide in Gaza which started in October 2023. “Decades of impunity for Israeli war crimes paved the way for the unfolding genocide in 2023,” the book states.

While the book relies on themes, and it does so with impeccable attention, the clarity with which the colonial context is explained allows the reader to easily link one facet of colonial violence with another. The chapter dealing with “Ecological Justice”, for example, is the culmination of what the 1948 Nakba eventually cost Palestinians in terms of loss. Land is continuously usurped into the Israeli colonial enterprise, while Palestinians face political, territorial and economical loss. This chapter also allows for connection and collective efforts to emerge, as the book notes how planting parks over indigenous territory is one of the features of colonialism. In colonised Palestine since 1967, 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted, which is equivalent to 33 times the size of Central Park in New York City.

The sheer amount of information collected in this book is astounding, but it also reflects the accumulation of ramifications of colonialism in Palestine. The chapters on Palestinian political prisoners and Israel’s silencing of Palestinians and support for Palestinians; the latter also affecting non-Palestinians, are particularly important. Complicity with Israel is also explored in the infographics. Several examples are given in the book – one that stands out in terms of international collaboration with Israel is titled “Moving the Goalposts: Delaying Palestinian Football Justice” which describes the bureaucracy employed by FIFA to avoid applying its own rules on hosting matches on another member’s territory. Instead of applying its limitations to Israeli settlement teams, FIFA formed a committee in 2015 to deliberate the matter, only to block a motion two years later.

What stands out in this collection of infographics is the urgency with which Palestine should be considered. Too much time has been wasted by the international community allowing Israel to not only expand its colonialism, but also to continuously expand what the international community allows in terms of international law violations and war crimes. Politicians speak in generalised terms and from a pro-colonial framework. Visualising Palestine’s infographics imparts the magnitude of Israeli colonialism’s violations, in a way that leaves no space for doubt but all the opportunity to learn and mobilise.

Visualising Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation